Aligning Payment with Quality

Primary care is the front line of Oregon’s health system, and the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) is working with public and commercial payers across the state on payment reform initiatives that move from volume to value and away from fee-for-service. In 2015 the Oregon legislature signaled its commitment to primary care payment reform by enacting Senate Bill 231. This legislation mandated the following:

Primary Care Spending Report: OHA and the Department of Consumer and Business Services (DCBS) report the percent of health care expenditures allocated to primary care by prominent carriers, Coordinated Care Organizations and PEBB/OEBB. Click here to read the report.

Primary Care Payment Reform Collaborative: The objective of the collaborative is to allow participants to share best practices that support innovation and improvement in primary care and to work together to seek alignment and agreement around primary care reimbursement to help improve population health, patient care, and control health care costs across Oregon. This collaborative is building on previous consensus-based strategies agreed to by payers and other key partnersconvened by OHA and the Oregon Health Leadership Council in 2013. convened by OHA and the Oregon Health Leadership Council in 2013.

Public Employees' Benefit Board

The Public Employee's Benefit Board (PEBB) provides an age-adjusted, per-member-per-month incentive payment to Tier 2 or Tier 3 recognized primary care homes in the PEBB Statewide plan, administered by Providence Health & Services. In addition, PEBB members in the PEBB Statewide plan have lower cost share for primary care services when they access care through a recognized primary care home - from 15 to 10 percent.

Coordinated Care Organizations

The Coordinated Care Organizations (CCO) your clinic contracts with may offer incentive payments for recognized primary care homes. Please check with your CCO representative to inquire about value based payments that may be available.

Aetna

Aetna's Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) recognition program offers per-member-per-month payment incentives using the PCPCH tiers, and is available to physician practices in Oregon that meet certain criteria: Directly contracted with Aetna; Received recognition by the NCQA or by the State of Oregon Patient-Centered Primary Care Home program as a PCPCH; Have 10 or more attributed Aetna members; and be reimbursed at 100% of the Aetna Market Fee Schedule (AMFS). Questions about this program can be directed to Denise Casner, Network Manager, at 503-937-0621, or by email to CasnerD@aetna.com.

Federal Payment Initiatives for Primary Care

Medicare

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) Section 5501(a) created the Primary Care Incentive Payment program to offer an incentive payment to qualifying primary care physicians and non-physician practitioners who furnish primary care services to Medicare patients. To be eligible for the incentive payment, qualifying services must be rendered between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2015. Providers in Oregon received approximately $5.1 million under this program in 2012.

Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+)

Oregon is one of fourteen regions selected by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to participate in this multi-payer advanced medical home model offering an innovative payment structure to improve healthcare quality and delivery. It’s a five year federal program beginning in January 2017.

CPC+ builds on the Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative (CPCi) which ends in December 2016. Nearly 70 primary care clinics in Oregon were selected to participate in CPCi. Clinics submitted CPC+ applications to CMS in September 2016 and selected clinics will be announced in November. Please note that no new clinics are eligible to apply for the program at this time.

Medicaid

The Affordable Care Act also directs a temporary increase for primary care physicians who see Medicaid patients in 2013 and 2014. The increase in payments will bring Medicaid primary care service fees in line with those paid by Medicare. The extra payments are intended to encourage primary care physicians to provide more checkups, preventive screenings, vaccines and other care for Medicaid beneficiaries. States will receive 100 percent federal matching funds for the increase in payments.

Medicaid Affordable Care Act Section 2703 payments

The time-limited supplemental payments available through the Affordable Care Act Section 2703 for recognized primary care homes ended September 30, 2013. Primary care homes were eligible for enhanced payments under a provision of the ACA from October 2011 - September 2013. Please note that these payments are no longer available and all 2013 patient lists must have been submitted by December 31, 2013.